White House faces email hang-up

The White House tried to get responses from federal employees about improving government transparency, but several workers never received the email prompting until the comment period had ended. Nextgov.com reported on Monday that the memo never made it to many department heads in time, and employees found out about it unofficially through social networking sites.

It's just one of the many problems that the administration is facing as it tries to put President Obama's transparency pledge in place and move government into using technology in new and better ways. Receiving the official message so late "highlighted one of the areas that have been a struggle" for open government, said Jack Holt, senior strategist for emerging media at the Defense Department.

The White House extended the comment period until March 27 as a result of the snag. Agency leaders are supposed to submit their recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget before the end of May.

For more on this e-mail failure:
- check out this nextgov.com article